The Problem with Promises Page 11

  “You are a crazy, crazy, girl.” For all his tenderness, a current of suppressed violence stung my nostrils.

  Trowbridge is concerned. I rolled my eyes toward his. “I’m mad at you.”

  “You’re always mad at me.”

  “Boss!” Harry yelled.

  “In the old part of the cemetery,” Trowbridge called. “Check out the bodies on your way over here. I want to know who did this.”

  “Bikers,” I said, carefully breathing through my mouth. Fae Stars, I wanted to puke. “Someone sent bikers to kidnap me. Why humans? That’s just low.”

  Casperella drifted over to us, the hem of her gown brushing against the grass. She’d absorbed some of the magic in the air and now I could see her hair—long, dark, beautiful. Also the details of her face, delicate features, with a softly curved chin.

  “You’re such a thief, Casperella,” I mumbled. My mouth felt rusty. So dry that my tongue was thick and fat. Like some dried-up cow tongue inside my mouth. Leathery. Reluctant to crisply form the sound of an s.

  Trowbridge’s long fingers teased a strand of my hair off my wet face and tucked it gently behind my pointed ear. I must be crying. Strange I don’t feel sad. Just beginning to hurt real bad. His thumb stroked my jaw. “You keep getting beat up, Tink.”

  “I know,” I said peevishly.

  His face hardened as he swiveled to stare at the pond. “The Sisters set us up. They must have called Whitlock right after they spoke to me.”

  A pair of cowboy boots strode into my line of vision. Harry. He cleared his throat. “You don’t look so good, Little Miss,” Harry said.

  I don’t feel so good. I’d kept my hand tucked into my chest, but now it burned so badly, promising that this payback session would be an utter bitch. If it looked as horrible as it felt … I took a quick peek and wished I hadn’t.

  “Jesus wept,” said Harry.

  Oh. Fae. Stars. My flesh was as red as a skinned rabbit ready for the pot. Fat blisters distorted my knuckle. The palm was worse—a bevy of blisters had met at my lifeline fork for a gang bang and the resulting single bubble was damn near obscene.

  Trowbridge swore—one short word—then he said, “Someone’s going to pay.”

  That would be me.

  “Who were they?” the Alpha of Creemore demanded.

  “Bikers,” replied Harry.

  “Told you.” Well, I tried to say that, but my lips were rubbery and my words came out without the benefit of consonants.

  “They were wearing Liam’s patch,” Harry said. “Whitlock uses him for personal stuff. Things he doesn’t want traced back to him or his pack.” He pivoted on his heel, wiped his nose as he studied the pond. “The air doesn’t smell right.”

  Trowbridge looked up to Harry, suddenly all business. “Get on the phone. I want everyone out on the road looking for the Sisters. If they find them before us, they’re to stop them, and hold them. As much as I want those bitches to die, they’re not to kill them. We need them alive. They are going to punch a door through that ward.”

  “Little Miss is going to pass out,” said Harry.

  “No I’m not,” I promised them.

  But then again, I lie a lot.

  Chapter Eight

  Drowsily, I opened my eyes. I was facedown, my head pillowed on my good arm. My other was stretched out on the brilliant green moss. The air smelled … sweet. Lightly scented with flowers of a type not found in my world. A blue myst played lightly over the contours of my swollen knuckles. So gently, its touch felt like a cool breath on heated skin.

  Threall.

  I must have fainted in Creemore.

  So, I’m here. In the realm between the mortal world and the Fae’s.

  My mum’s genetic imprint had gifted me with more than the ability to toss a tombstone or two. I’m also a mystwalker, which is what the Fae call those born with the unique ability to tear their own psyche from their mortal shell. Capable of travel to here—this secret realm, this sacred place—where the souls of the drowsing Fae hang from ancient trees.

  Lucky us.

  The Fae call us deviants and horrors too, but that was from fear. In their place, I guess I would be wary of someone who could see into me, know all my secrets, hear all my longings, taste all my memories, just by placing a hand on the spine of a tree.

  Souls. Goddess, so many souls in the sky above me.

  Shaped like balls, or maybe moons. Encased in vellum-thin skins. Each cyreath a glowing sphere, inner lit by the Fae’s essence. Each soul-light was unique, in some way. Be it the subtle pattern on their skin or, more obviously, the hue of their soul. And of that … oh Goddess, so many shades. Yellows and golds, peaches and pinks, reds and angry purples. If I lifted my head from this bed of moss, I know I’d see a handful of brilliant blue soul-balls, in the far distance.

  They called to me.

  The whole damn place did—this realm between the mortal world and the Fae’s. It’s the downside of my mother’s gift—if a mystwalker travels too often to this world, they become too detached from their true world. They forget how to return home.

  There were a few upsides though. My right hand should be a throbbing mess. I’d burned the crap out of it doing all that magic by the pond. By rights, it should look more than a tad scalded. But it didn’t. Threall’s blue myst was like a magic eraser, easing the pain, and with each gentle touch, it painlessly peeled away the old skin, leaving soft, pliable new skin underneath it. I watched, feeling a smile pluck at my lips.

  “The thumb,” I coaxed. “Fix the thumb.”

  Evidently, my word was its pleasure. It slid from knuckle to the Delta of Venus, twining itself around that ruined digit.

  Goddess, that feels good.

  Movement in my peripheral view. I saw a skirt—long, thick blue velvet. And feet. Small, very dainty, in sandals that a Greek goddess might have coveted.

  “Nice feet, Mad-one.” I rolled over onto my back. “But then again, I guess you don’t use them all that much.”

  The Mystwalker of Threall prefers to fly.

  I gazed at her.

  She returned my regard, wearing her usual expression—mouth set in a stiff smile that was absolutely bankrupt of humor. Wide mouth, lips well defined and somewhat pink. A nose that would do well on someone who had a double-barreled last name and an Oxford accent. Blond hair that never seemed to misbehave, even when she was hurling fire bolts.

  “Why don’t I ever wake up near my own tree?” I asked her.

  “Mystwalkers never materialize by their citadel. It is one of the few protections we have against those who wish us ill.”

  “You fixed your dress,” I observed, before I sat up. Last I’d seen her, the hem and most of the skirt had been muddy. The nap on the fabric had been seared into a dark brown streak over her hip.

  She’d conjured a makeover—her gown was lovely once more. Couldn’t blame her. Who wouldn’t avail themselves of the magic in this world? In truth, it never failed to distract me. I could feel it on my skin. Smell it with my part Were nose. It was like drinking sweet wine. Each mouthful prodded you into taking another. And somewhere between all those sips? You forgot. Things you shouldn’t.

  Goddess … the ward!

  “Do you know how to break a ward?” I asked.

  “I am not a sorcerer.”

  “One day we really must sit down and write out a list of the things you can and cannot do. Starting with being friendly. Do you remember friendly?”

  She raised one brow and managed to keep her face grave, but I saw a flicker of something almost like amusement in her eyes. “You were summoned,” she said. “Why did you not come?”

  “No one sent me an invitation.”

  Silently, she pointed to the kid’s imprint on my arm. In this world the wound glowed even brighter, as if it was absorbing energy from the air. “That’s you?” I said, staring at my glow-bright arm. “I thought the bite mark was reacting to the magic down in my world.” Wonderful. Now I’m on Mad-one�
�s speed dial. “Is this permanent? Once we’ve concluded our business, will it fade?”

  “I have been calling you for an age,” she said.

  “Uh-huh.” I leaned to the side to look past her full skirt. Two black walnuts—immense and powerful—used to anchor the edge of Threall’s world. Now, only one tree remained. It was enormous and solid. Thick trunk. Boughs so heavy they looked like a giant’s muscled thigh. Its cyreath was lodged high in its branches, casting a brooding light. Purple and mottled reds.

  The Black Mage’s soul lived in that tree.

  And FYI? He was a bad, bad man.

  Murder, cheating, naughty wizardry—by my brother’s account, the Black Mage had done all of that in Merenwyn. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t bother me too much, as I lived in my world, and with any luck, the Royal Court’s evil wizard would stay in his. But, unfortunately, the bastard had a deep desire to kill me or my brother. And as we are twins, the death of either one of us would amount to a tidy two-for-one deal for him.

  If I’d never come to Threall … if I’d listened to my mum … I’d never have met him or the other wizard, and then my life would have been dull, and simple … and somewhat more abbreviated than I’d anticipated. But it would have been mine. And I wouldn’t have known what hell was coming my way.

  And Lexi? His life—for what that was now worth—would have been his too.

  My gaze traveled to the torn-up ground a few feet to the right of the nasty wizard’s hulking citadel.

  Damn. I’d kind of hoped I’d dreamed it.

  But that hole—that large depression in the soil that still sprouted the jagged edge of torn roots—was very much proof that once another huge and ancient tree had squatted at the end of Threall’s world. Or rather, better said, had held on to life there. And now it was gone and my brother was the Old Mage’s temporary nalera.

  Well done, Hedi.

  I stood and wiped my hands clean on my pant leg. “Why did you call me?”

  Mad-one’s mouth pursed, in exactly the way you don’t want someone’s lips to shape before they respond to a very important question. “Your brother—”

  All my anxiety? It was like the pressure inside the soda bottle well shaken. It spewed out in a torrent of words. “He didn’t make it, did he? He’s stuck in the portal, right? He’s never getting out—”

  The Mystwalker lifted an imperious hand. “Stop. We have limited time.”

  But I was a horse without a bridle. “What about his mind? Is he all right? All there? Does he know that I had no choice? Does he understand my decision? Does he know that I’m coming for him? Does he know…”

  That I’d willingly sent him into puppet hell?

  “Which question do you wish me to answer?”

  And there it was: her careful query was my answer. I rubbed my face with my hands. Stomach sick. My twin knew I’d conspired to send him into the arms of the Old Mage.

  Lexi knew.

  “Mystwalker,” she said. “Your brother desires to speak to you. It is your mage’s wish that you do so immediately.”

  “He’s healed?” I said, mouth dry.

  “I only know that I must bring you.” And with that, she gave up on standing. She rose in the air, with the grace of a thistle seed. “We have no time, Hedi of Creemore. Follow me.”

  Sickly, I turned for the hole in the hedges. Lexi wants to talk. I almost tripped into a tree stump thinking about that conversation. Hey, Lexi—sorry for the whole bait and switch.

  The Mystwalker clapped her hands, hard. I glanced at her, too heartsick to even tell her to take her empress tricks and shove it up her—

  “We will fly,” she informed me.

  “What?” I gaped at her. “How do I do that?”

  “You are a mystwalker,” she said. “All you need do is to wish it.”

  “I wish you’d fall on your ass.”

  She lifted a brow. “You cannot wish ill on me.”

  “A girl can try,” I said, studying her.

  Fly, huh?

  Yes, I’d flown before, but with as much self-determination as a lead ball being belched out of the mouth of a cannon. I’d shot across space, holding a mage’s soul in my arms, terrified that I was going to lose trajectory before I saw blessed ground beneath me.

  Truthfully? I’d thought the old man had been doing the steering.

  But it was me? I’d flown? Well, call me Supergirl.

  Mad-one gave me an irritated glance. “Mystwalker, we must make haste.”

  She adjusted her altitude, elevating a few feet higher so that her gown wouldn’t get caught on the hedgerow’s wicked thorns, and took off. Heading for the wild side of the clearing, where there was a little glen and one medium-sized black walnut tree that had one solid taproot and two trunks.

  “Wait!” I said.

  But being “the” Mystwalker, of course, she didn’t.

  I tested the idea. Fly.

  Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. As if my core was terribly empty and wings—tiny and easily broken—were brushing against my guts.

  And then came the lightening.

  But from within me. I was light, so very light.

  And supple. And free.

  I rose in the sky—look at me, I’m levitating!—and then made the newbie mistake of bending over to see if my feet were still on the ground, and almost a did a very graceful somersault into the tops of the hawthorn hedge.

  Whoa.

  A quick correction of spine and head adjustment, and then I was more or less vertical.

  “Hey!” I shouted to Mad-one.

  The Mystwalker did a graceful turn—the swan on a placid river. A curl of blue myst twined around her swaying skirt. She made a mocking “come” gesture with her hand.

  “Up, up, and away,” I said grimly.

  And then … oh sweet heavens … I flew.

  * * *

  Mad-one had a lead on me, which I never managed to shorten. There were trees to avoid, and I had constant issues with keeping my elevation steady, but I did follow her progress to the little clearing.

  From the edge of the glade one could mistakenly believe that there were two separate trees growing in that odd little open space. But in truth, the two young black walnuts shared a low thick trunk and one single long taproot.

  Twins. One trunk, two trees.

  I came to a wavering halt. It was still arresting—the joined trees, the quietness of the clearing, the sway of the waist-high grasses that ringed the space. And most stunning of all, the aurora borealis—flames of light that spoke of mystery and history—cast by the glow of our cyreaths.

  Lexi and I were twins, but not identical. The hues spun from my cyreath were gold and green, with tiny flickers of intermittent blue. While Lexi’s came from an altogether different spectrum …

  How much time has passed in this world? It’s only been a few hours in mine.

  Previously, the lights weaving around his tree had been picked from a royal palette—plum purples and midnight blues. But now red—a dull, throbbing crimson—had tinged those shades. Purples had been darkened to the bruised heart of a pansy and blues had been reddened to the shade of damson plum.

  I looked upward.

  There were three soul-balls hanging from our citadel’s branches—a single cyreath on my tree, two on Lexi’s. In the boughs of his tree, one soul had been placed a little higher than the other so that all of its sagging weight was balanced on the firmer soul-ball.

  That’s not how it was supposed to look. How on earth will I separate them?

  I’d envisioned a tidy seam where the two cyreaths would join. A straight and obvious line that could be cut with surgical precision. But the Old Mage’s soul wasn’t adhering itself to Lexi’s neatly. Instead it was … melting on it. His vellum sheath was slack, while Lexi’s was still firm. And now gravity—did Threall even have gravity? Whatever. His soul was enveloping my twin’s.

  A sick feeling swept over me, and it damn well drowned whatever lightness had been worki
ng the magic of flight. Faster than a balloon with a pinprick, I went from highflyer to ground dweller.

  “Speak to him,” Mad-one said, her voice flat.

  I wanted to just stay there. Standing on the edge of the glade, deferring the reckoning between my twin and me for infinity and beyond. Or better yet, to will myself back to the real world. The moss was soft under my feet as I slowly walked to our trees. Lexi’s was taller than mine and less foliaged. His bark was more striated and textured.

  The green-gold light of my own cyreath bathed my skin.

  I lifted my trembling hand and touched my twin’s tree, not knowing who I’d meet, my brother or his mage.

  * * *

  I couldn’t find him at first. Nothing was ever easy with Lexi, and this was no different. I should have been able to access his soul with a simple touch—that’s how I’d done it before. Flatten my palm on the trunk, and there I’d be. In the thought streams. Wandering the soul’s memories and feelings.

  But instead, all I encountered was a confusing cloud of blinding color. Swirls of the vivid blues found in a peacock feather. Tongues of vermilion. Swaths of purples, some so dark they were almost ink-black.

  He’s waiting, I thought.

  Indeed he was. Suddenly, an invisible hand tightened around my throat. Panic rose. Though I was frantic to claw it away, I couldn’t move—my palm seemed seared to the rough trunk.

  I was sightless. And trapped.

  “Lexi,” I gasped, “it’s me.”

  A moment of consideration before the pressure around my throat eased. I sucked in deep whoops of air and borrowed strength from the tree I’d sagged against. When my lungs no longer felt afire, I tried to move away, and discovered that I was still held firmly in place. Caught, but no longer being actively punished.

  Is that how he’s feeling? Like he’s begging for air?

  “I don’t beg,” said Lexi.

  My twin’s soul was on the other side of that spectrum of color. Hidden from me. And he’d never let me touch it. Or know him again.

  My eyes burned.

  And then I heard my brother’s voice say, “Come.”